


Aleinu

by Remeinhu



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Antisemitism, F/F, Gen, Historical atrocities (discussed), Jewish Character, Judaism, Neither Fluff nor Angst, Past Rape/Non-con, Racism, Reincarnation, Religious Discussion, Though it will contain episodes of both
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24399397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remeinhu/pseuds/Remeinhu
Summary: When Catalina and Kitty begin to grapple with the legacies of their and their families' complicity with the persecution of Iberian Jews and the colonization of the Americas, they learn far more than they expected about why the six of them were reincarnated and what they must do with their second chance.
Relationships: Anne Boleyn & Jane Seymour, Anne Boleyn & Katherine Howard, Anne Boleyn/Catherine Parr, Anne of Cleves/Katherine Howard, Catherine of Aragon & Catherine Parr, Catherine of Aragon & Katherine Howard
Comments: 47
Kudos: 77





	1. Self-Inventory

Catalina de Trastámara y Trastámara de Arágon, erstwhile Infanta of the Kingdoms of Castille and Aragon, Dowager Princess of Wales, Queen of England, and lately, since her highly improbable reincarnation, 21st-century West End sensation, had not been paying particular attention to her fellow queens’ frenetic channel surfing until a vaguely familiar phrase broke into her consciousness.

“…it was the hour of the infamous _auto da fé,_ where, for public amusement, heretics and nonbelievers were tortured and burned in a carnival-like atmosphere. And it was guided by the most fearful specter to ever sit in judgment over good and evil: the Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada.”

Catalina set her book down and peered up at the screen. What she saw was, clearly, a parody of events that began around the time of her birth in her previous life. As the Grand Inquisitor Torquemada broke his exaggeratedly solemn character and began to perform an over-the-top vaudeville number, the other queens laughed uproariously.

Catalina, however, felt slightly ill. Tomás de Torquemada, after all—the Grand Inquisitor, whose character was now singing gleefully, “it’s better to lose your skullcap than your skull!” as he gallivanted around a dungeon—was one of her mother’s closest advisors. If he hadn’t literally danced before the victims of the Spanish Inquisition, he _had_ overseen the tortures, the slaughters, the expulsions. And he had done so at the enthusiastic urging of her revered parents: Fernando de Trastámara de Arágon and especially Isabel de Trastámara de Castillia y Léon, the Catholic monarchs of a new united Spain, overseers of the Reconquista, backers of the colonization of the New World and the enslavement and slaughter of its indigenous peoples, and the scourge of Iberia’s Jews, Muslims, conversos, and moriscos.

In her old life, Catalina had seen this as righteous and necessary. But the body into which she found herself reborn was blacker and queerer (concepts she had struggled to grasp but whose effects in this new life would not be denied), the Church to which she was still devoted animated, at least in part, by a spirit far more egalitarian and revolutionary, and her social life filled with the people she would, in her old life, have named Christ-killers.

For a while, it was true, she had more pressing worries, even after the shock of reincarnation and the whirlwind adjustment (the noises! The lights! The complete upheaval of their understanding of how such basic things as their bodies functioned!) to the 21st century. The queens had spent a great deal of time over the past two years working through their past lives as individuals. They’d even begun to confront their individual wrongs—Catalina doubted, for example, that Catherine Parr would ever fully forgive herself for her part in her final husband’s sexual abuse of one Elizabeth Tudor, and for all she loved her goddaughter fiercely, she wasn’t sure Cathy _should_ ever forgive herself for that.

But one constant between Catalina’s former life and her current one was her grasp of politics. And she suspected that they could not avoid the political—let alone moral—implications of who they had been, and what they and their houses had done, for much longer.

\----

As Catalina prepared for bed that night, she heard a knock on her door. She opened it to see Katherine Howard’s gentle face peering at her with mild concern.

“Kitty?” she asked. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The young woman anxiously twisted her pink-tipped hair around her fingers. “Is it a good time? I can come back if not…”

“Kitty, please. You know my door is always open to you. Do come in.”

Kitty stepped inside and sat down nervously on the end of Catalina’s bed. She hesitated. “I…know you don’t always love it when we ask after your feelings. But I couldn’t help but notice that you looked upset at the movie we were watching, and I just wondered if you wanted to talk about it.” She looked up at Catalina and shrugged. ”It’s fine if not, really.”

Catalina sighed. “You weren’t wrong, Kitty.” She paced over to her window and gazed out over the street, still somewhat unused to the dazzling lights of the city at night. “That scene may have been a parody, but the things it’s talking about really happened. And my parents ordered them. So, Kitty, tell me—how, exactly, am I supposed to look our music director in the eye, knowing what my parents did to her ancestors?” She paused. “Henry, may he rot, hurt us all, and so many others. And yet I am realizing that the people from our past lives who are remembered well, and revered, spilt as much blood as those people today remember as tyrants.”

She drew in a breath that shook more than she would have liked. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to think hard on the violence my house has done. I’m not ignorant of what they call my Mary, or what she did when she was Queen. I’ve done so much soul-searching about how to remember her. But I won’t pretend it doesn’t bother me how proud of Elizabeth Anne gets to be, when Elizabeth herself persecuted English Catholics and sponsored the colonization of Ireland and the New World. Forty-four years on the throne allows you to be much bloodier than five, after all.”  
  


“And the thing is,” Catalina continued, “in our past lives we all would have approved. We may have disagreed about which factions deserved persecution, or which styles of persecution were in bad form. But we believed that as royals we had the right of life and death over our subjects, as Christians it was the right and proper thing to bring all the world under the power of the Church—whichever one it might be—and as Europeans we were obliged to bring proper order to the world we saw as uncivilized. We might never have thought otherwise if not for this reincarnation—and in particular some of the bodies we came back with—”

She broke off, realizing that she’d slipped into a monologue and worried that her violent turn her musing had taken might upset Kitty. But the young woman nodded thoughtfully.

  
  
_We’ve all got to stop treating her like spun glass_ , Catalina thought.

“I’ve wondered some of the same things,” Kitty said. “I’ve been spending a lot of time on”—and she quickly sucked in her breath, then continued—“some online communities for survivors, and one of the things they say over and over again is that sexual violence is more about power than it is about sex. Well, that was obvious to me, looking back—what better demonstration of that than when one of your abusers is the King? But then…” She sighed. “Someone else talked about how that’s why sexual violence was a tool in enforcing slavery, and, being the little fool that everyone says I was, I had to go and read about it.” Kitty laughed ruefully as she rubbed the scar around her neck, which was currently hidden by the hood of her sweatshirt. “Well, to begin with, I had some very predictable nightmares, and I had to spend several nights with Jane. After that, though, I started thinking—that’s something we queens had a part in establishing, even if it wasn’t direct. And if I’m going to get up there and sing ‘All You Wanna Do’ every night, and say in interviews it’s about supporting other survivors…don’t I have to deal with this broader thing, eventually?”

“Yes,” said Catalina, after a long pause. “I believe we all do. I wish I knew what that looked like, though. I suspect each of us will have our own particular point of entry—and I’ll admit I worry about what it will do to Anne. You know how defensive she is about Elizabeth—why do you suppose she barely mentions her in the show? And I fear I’m exactly the wrong person to broach _that_ with her.”

“When the time comes, I’ll speak to Anne,” Kitty said. “But as for how to start—well, Cathy would tell us to learn more, wouldn’t she? I’m actually surprised she hasn’t raised this earlier.”

“I’m not,” said Catalina. “Cathy has a magisterial talent for compartmentalizing, and once she’s found a thesis she’ll shut out anything that disrupts its elegance. If she wants to focus on reclaiming our six voices, what does it do to that narrative to point out the voices _we’ve_ suppressed? She’ll adapt to it if challenged—she’s a good enough scholar to do that—but she won’t be the first to note it. And in any case,” she added, “I don’t know that Cathy feels she’s in a position right now to point out our sins…and she isn’t entirely wrong.”

“You have a point,” Kitty conceded. “But the general advice she’d give, to learn more, is still good.” She chewed on her lip for a moment. “I can’t pretend I’m looking forward to this, Catalina. What I already read was bad enough. Can we do this research together? If I ask Jane to come to the library or attend a lecture with me, she’ll try to protect me from getting even a little upset—and anyway, even though she’s gotten much better at reading, I think she still feels uncomfortable in libraries. Anne and Cathy were scholarly, but we’ve already talked about why it might be best to bring them in a little later. And I don’t want my relationship with Anna to be about this, yet—I want that to just feel _happy_ for a little longer.”

“Of course, Kitty.” Catalina was deeply relieved she wouldn’t have to dive into this project alone. “I could use the support as well. Perhaps at first each of us can take charge of topics that hit the other one a bit too close to home.”

“Perfect.” Kitty cracked a wry grin. “I’ll take torture and religious persecution; you take sexual violence as a tactic of colonial conquest.” She hopped off of Catalina’s bed, her jaunty posture and arched eyebrow clashing ironically with the trepidation on her face. “This will be such cheery fun!” She rolled her eyes. “Who would think that the two of us—the stubborn, overly pious prig and the empty-headed little slut—would be the ones to get _political?_ ”

Catalina laughed sharply. “How rare! How delicious!” She sobered. “Kitty—you know you’re none of those things, right? You’ve certainly shown me tonight that you’re not a fool!”

“Well, and I’ve been trying to learn that even if I did decide I were a slut, that would be a fine thing to be, although I don’t know how well it will ever stick. It’s not as if people don’t still beat women over the head with it. For that matter, even if I _were_ a fool, that wouldn’t have justified any of what happened.” She smirked grimly. “But seriously—I know I have things worth saying, and I can’t begin to tell you how much the five of you have helped me believe that. It’s hard to remember sometimes, though, when I’m the precious baby who has to be protected at all costs. Not that I _mind_ the protection—goodness knows I got precious little of it in my last life! It’s just that if I can’t ever take the chance I might get hurt again, I really _will_ become a fool.”

“Too true.” Catalina considered this for a moment. “I suspect we sometimes forget that you’re not merely twenty-two; you have the same five hundred years of limbo as the rest of us on top of it, and you learned more hard lessons in the nineteen-odd years of your last life than many people learn in eighty. You have as much right to take chances as any of us.” She favored Kitty with a warm smile. “I’ll take the _very_ clear direction not to mollycoddle you, darling, but I do have to ask—will you be all right in your own room tonight? If you’d rather have a break from Jane or Anna, you’re welcome to stay here.”

“I think I feel all right for the moment, and thank you for asking. Can I come back later if I need to?” At Catalina’s nod, she made her way towards the door, then looked back. “Catalina—you do know you’re not a prig? You _are_ stubborn and pious, but those are things for which I, at least, am pretty grateful. You should be proud of them.”

Catalina found herself momentarily speechless, but the look she gave Kitty was thanks enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The other queens are, of course, watching the Spanish Inquisition song from Mel Brooks' "History of the World, Part I."
> 
> Catalina's practical attitude (though likely not her theological attitude) toward Jews would have been more nuanced than I've given her credit for here--personal and political relations between Jews and Christians prior to the expulsion, especially among the nobility, would have been deeply complex, and Isabel and Fernando were no exception.


	2. Primary Sources

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catalina and Kitty make a first visit to a research library. The hostility they encounter there adds urgency to their mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: racism. There's one encounter depicted, and two others discussed.

Two weeks later, memberships finally squared away, Catalina and Kitty walked into the Research Library of London, stared at the vast and meandering stacks, and were immediately confronted with the realization that they hadn’t the foggiest idea of where to begin.

“Perhaps,” Kitty ventured hesitantly, “we need Cathy’s help after all?”

Catalina—who would have reveled in the seemingly endless shelves before her if not for the task at hand—was inclined to agree. “Still,” she said, “surely there are people who work here who know what they’re doing and can help us.”

“Oh?” Kitty said. “And what will we say to them? That we’re trying to learn about horrible things we and our families did five hundred years ago so that we can atone? They’ll think we’re mad.”

“Of course not,” Catalina replied, with a confidence she in no way felt. “We’ll tell them that we’re interested in researching the Spanish Inquisition, and early colonialism.” She set her face into a serene mask and strode over to the reference desk.

The woman behind the desk didn’t look up. Catalina cleared her throat. “Excuse me, ma’am?”

The woman glanced up briefly. “Stacks are only open to members.”

“Yes, we are members. We received the confirmation yesterday.”

“Oh. Pardon me. You just aren’t the type of person who normally comes in.”

Catalina's stomach sank. _Oh, not again._ She arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, well…really…”

Catalina crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m waiting for your explanation. Please, enlighten me. Why, exactly, am I not the type of person who normally comes in?”

“Now really. It isn’t necessary to give me attitude!”

By this point, Kitty had marched over to the reference desk, calling on her own imperiousness. “I’m sorry. Is there a reason you’re giving my friend difficulty?”

Faced with two withering glares, the woman backed down. “I apologise. How can I help you, ladies?”

Catalina regarded the woman frostily. “I’m looking for material on sexual violence and early colonialism.”

Kitty chimed in: “And I need resources on the Spanish Inquisition, please.”

“Well, we are ambitious, aren’t we? Are you sure you don’t want to start a bit simpler?”

Catalina met the woman’s eyes and held them. “We are perfectly clear about what we need, thank you.”

The woman shrank back. “One moment.” She consulted her computer and then wrote two locations on a piece of paper, which she handed to Kitty, conspicuously avoiding Catalina. “Goodness, I do hope you’re not trying to tear the country down further. I don’t see why we should have to keep apologising for civilizing the world.” As Catalina and Kitty turned toward the stacks, she added, “And see that you keep your voices down!”

Catalina kept her cool through sheer force of will, but she sorely wanted to punch the woman. Instead, she gently squeezed Kitty’s shoulder. Barely in time, too, as Kitty had begun to whirl around in open fury. “Easy, Gatita,” she whispered. “Let’s just check out what we need and get out of here.”

______

“The _nerve_ of that absolute BITCH!” Kitty was walking so quickly that Catalina was almost out of breath keeping up with her.

“Kitty, love, you know I agree with you, but maybe keep it down?!”

“Keep it down? How can you be so calm about this?!”

Catalina scrambled, panting a bit, to come abreast with Kitty. “You’re five inches shorter than I am. I don’t understand how you can outwalk me.” She sighed. “Gatita, of course I’m furious, but unfortunately two years of living in this body has taught me to expect it. And it’s also made me wary of drawing attention on the street, unfortunately. So while I’m grateful for your rage on my behalf, might I prevail upon you to save the shouting until we get home?”

Kitty wilted. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“I understand, love. Believe me, I can’t begin to tell you how badly I wanted to punch that stuffy bitch square in her upturned little nose.”

“Catalina de Trastámara y Trastámara, is it possible that I heard you curse?!”

“Suffice it to say that if she’d gone on much longer, matters would have escalated far beyond ‘bitch.’”

_______

At dinner that night, Catalina vaguely registered that Anne was regaling the other queens with the story of her encounter with a tabloid reporter, but her mind was elsewhere.

“…so I told him that I wasn’t going to have any part in his attempt to manufacture drama among us, and if he wanted to do anything for me he could shove his head up his own...”

“My dear Anne, diplomatic as ever.” Cathy ruffled her girlfriend’s hair.

Jane snorted. “You do realize, Anne, that you gave him all the drama he could have wanted by saying that?”

Anne smirked. “Worth it.”

“I, for one, approve,” said Anna. “It may read like drama, but at least it’s directed against him.”

“I’m surprised Catalina hasn’t lectured me on decorum yet,” Anne said, wiggling an eyebrow in the eldest queen’s direction.

“Hmm?” Anne’s voice had only just broken into Catalina’s ruminations. “Oh, yes, Anne, that’s very nice.”

“And then, Catalina,” Anne deadpanned, “I ducked into a closet, put on my superhero leotard, froze him with a single glance, and leapt out the window to fly over the city and dispense vigilante justice.”

“Well, that sounds…wait, what?”

“Aha, _now_ you’re paying attention. I _would_ make an excellent superhero, though. I could be ‘The Headless Reformer.’”

Cathy laughed. “Well, _I_ think that’s about the hottest thing I’ve ever heard, but it may be a bit cumbersome for everyday use.”

“All right, all right.” Catalina shook her head to clear it. “I’m listening. _What_ public relations disaster have you created now?”

“Don’t worry about it. It was a minor tabloid.”

“Catalina,” Jane ventured, “you and Kitty seem a bit, how shall I say, spaced out, tonight.”

“Oh? What makes you say that?”

“Um.” Jane stared at her. “This whole exchange?”

“And,” Anna chimed in, looking over at her girlfriend, “Kitty’s been eating her salad so absent-mindedly that she hasn’t even bothered to pick out the olives, which I know for a fact she hates.”

“What? There are olives in this?” Kitty made a face as she realized what she’d been eating. “Ugh, Jane, why didn’t you warn me?”

“I did, my darling. I distinctly told you _twice_ that there were large pieces of olive that you should feel free to pick out.”

“Oh.” Kitty grabbed her water glass and chugged it.

“So.” Anna looked pointedly at Catalina. “What’s going on? I thought you and Kitty were going on some adventure today?”

“Well, we had an…unpleasant encounter.”

Jane looked worried. “Oh, no…did someone catcall…”

“No, for once.” Kitty had finished washing the taste of olives out of her mouth. “We were at a…” she looked over at Catalina and dissembled quickly, “a museum, and one of the docents was a racist ass, I’m afraid.”

Jane gasped. “Oh no! What did he say?”

“ _She,_ ” Kitty responded, “said that Catalina wasn’t the sort of person who normally came in, repeatedly suggested she was in over her head, and snapped at her to keep her voice down when she’d barely said anything.” She left out the woman’s comment about “civilizing the world” for the time being, figuring that would give away too much about the project.

Anne’s and Jane’s faces were studies in outrage. Anna and Cathy, however, just caught Catalina’s eyes, looking grimly resigned. She nodded back at them slowly.

“Yep,” said Anna, after a long pause. “That checks out, I’m afraid.” She looked at Cathy. “Remember the time one of the security guards at the theater tried to accuse me of sneaking into my own show?” Kitty wrapped her arm around Anna’s shoulder, giving her a protective squeeze.

Catalina remembered that that had been fairly early on in their new lives, when Anna was still unused enough to the realities of living in her new body to be shocked. She and Jane had overheard and come to rescue Anna, who had sobbed herself to sleep in Kitty’s arms that night. Now, when such things happened, Anna would calmly charm her way out of the situation as best she could. Then she would put herself through punishingly intense workouts, driving her anger into the punching bag she’d installed in her room.

Cathy nodded. “And there was the time that lady at Waterstone’s trailed me around the store for a good half-hour, like she was expecting me to steal something. When I asked her to please give me some space, she had the gall to tell me that I was giving her _attitude._ ” Catalina remembered that, too. Her goddaughter had come to her that evening, distraught. Catalina herself desperately wished she’d been there. She would never, ever, forgive the woman for daring to poison Cathy’s joy in _books._

“The lady today said something similar when I insisted that she do her job,” Catalina replied. “And of course I’ve got other stories like yours. You’d think we’d be used to it now, I suppose.”

“I hope we never get _used_ to it,” Anna growled. “That sounds too much like ‘accepting it.’”

“God forbid,” said Cathy. “But we’ve learned since to be strategic. I wish we didn’t have to, but there it is.” She looked at Anne. “You don’t know how much I envy you for being able to mouth off to that reporter. Anna, or Catalina, or I would have had to be much more careful.”

Anne opened her mouth to argue, but thought better of it. “Oh…” she breathed, as she thought through Cathy’s pronouncement.

The table fell silent. Kitty caught Catalina’s eye, and Catalina nodded back, echoing the thoughts written on the younger woman’s face.

_This is the world we live in now. This is the world that the people in our first lives helped set in motion. All the more reason this project is necessary._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "Research Library of London" does not, to my knowledge, exist. It is a “no real life institutions were harmed in the making of this fanfic” mashup of the London Library and the British Library. I have never been to either institution and therefore cannot say whether there has ever been a racist librarian who has pulled something like this, but, the world being what it is, I wouldn’t bet against it.
> 
> For the purposes of this story, incidentally, I am imagining the queens reincarnated as the original West End cast.


	3. Diversions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kitty's research takes her in an unexpected direction.

One evening later that week, as Kitty worked through a translation of Isabel and Fernando’s Edict of Expulsion of 1492, it struck her that she knew little to nothing about what Judaism…well, really, anything about what it _was._ Isabel and Fernando, clearly, saw “Judaizing” as a horrible thing, but they were hardly the most reliable of sources. In her previous life, she hadn’t met any Jews, as far as she knew—and she’d learned from some of her background reading that this was because Edward I had expelled them from England in 1290. As a child, she had heard stories and songs that treated Jews as miserly, child-killing monsters. _Well, I should know as well as anyone that horrible stories “everyone knows” about someone don’t necessarily have anything to do with the truth._

Her experience in this life hadn’t enlightened her all that much thus far. All she knew was that some of the staff on their show requested leave at different times each fall and spring, and one or two of them seemed to always avoid the charcuterie platters at parties and press events. That wasn’t even close to adequate.

She needed to know, she realized, just who the people Catalina’s parents had persecuted _had been_ …and who their descendants were now.

She typed “introduction to Judaism” into Google, and realized three hours later that she was utterly engrossed. Everything she read made her want to know more. While some of what she read was frustrating and even infuriating, the greater part of it was…appealing in ways she didn’t quite understand. The readings of the Biblical texts she had learned in her old life were fresh and different, and they sometimes made the stories seem like exciting puzzles. The cycle of the ritual year seemed to her, at first read, to have some kind of comforting rhythm that drew her in, and the brief snippets of rabbinic text she encountered had a chaotic logic to them that vaguely reminded her of Anne’s mind.

She sat back in her chair and worried at her thumbnail as she digested everything. _One Google deep dive isn’t enough. I need to read more. But I also need to visit a synagogue. I need to see what Christendom couldn’t destroy._

She pursed her lips. _Let’s see. From what I’ve read so far, it sounds like the kind of synagogue that would be easiest to visit is called a Liberal synagogue._ She searched for “Liberal synagogues in London.” She was overwhelmed at first, but after another forty minutes of researching synagogues, she had a short list of possibilities. She opened a new “compose” window in her email, copied a rabbi’s address into the “to” field, and stared at the blank message.

_What on earth do I write? “Hi, I just started reading about your religion and it sounds cool? Can I visit? Love, Kitty?” That’s ridiculous._ She groaned in frustration. _Crap, it’s after midnight, and we have a show tomorrow…_

“Kitty?” came Cathy’s voice from the hallway. _Of course, Parr_ would _be the only other one up this late._ “Everything all right?”

_Goddamn._ “Uh…yes?”

A pause, followed by a gentle knock. With a sigh, Kitty shut her laptop. “Come in.”

Cathy opened the door carefully, and stepped inside. “Usually I’m the only one with such godawful sleeping habits.”

Kitty shrugged. “I was working on something, got sidetracked, and fell down a rabbit hole. _You_ know how it is.”

“So I do. It sounded as though something was upsetting you, though. I just wanted to check in.”

Kitty bristled. _Good grief, can’t I just be annoyed without everyone treating it as a crisis?_ “Just frustrated. It happens.”

“Oh. Well, I didn’t mean to bother you.” Cathy looked a little hurt, Kitty thought. “It’s just that I’d hit a wall on my own project and figured it might help to talk to someone about something else for a bit. I can leave you alone, if you want.” She turned towards the door.

Kitty belatedly realized that Cathy might be able to help her draft the request she’d been struggling with, if she could figure out how to ask without giving the whole project away. “Wait a minute…would you mind helping me out with something?”

“Not at all!” Cathy looked relieved. “What is it?”

“This might sound strange…but if I wanted to visit a…place of worship where I wasn’t part of the religion, what should I write to the…person in charge to ask if I could come?”

Cathy raised an eyebrow. “That is a very interesting mixture of vagueness and specificity.”

“Look, I’m not ready to talk about the specifics yet.”

“Fair enough. But it might at least help to tell the person you’re writing to _something_ about why you want to visit.” Cathy looked around the room. “Can you at least tell me enough for me to help you write this?”

“I’m…” Kitty considered. “Is it enough to say for now that I’m doing some research, for my own education, and it would help me a lot to know some more about…” _Oh, what the hell. “_ Judaism and what happens in synagogue?”

Cathy’s face said plainly that she was desperate to know more, but she managed by main force to avoid prying further. “All right. Well, I’d avoid sounding too much like you’re making _them_ a research project, but I think you can say you’ve been working on a project that has made you want to know more about Jewish ritual, and would it be possible for you to visit?”

Kitty opened her laptop again, and began to write as Cathy helped her figure out how to phrase her request. She finally hit “send,” thanked Cathy and bid her good night, and crawled into bed.

_Well. This should be interesting…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find a translation of the 1492 Edict of Expulsion (also called the Alhambra Decree) here: http://www.sephardicstudies.org/decree.html
> 
> Kitty wouldn't have met any Jews (that she knew of, anyway) in her first life because England had two centuries’ head start on Spain in expelling its Jews. After several years of escalating anti-Jewish persecution—both popular and official—Edward I officially expelled all Jews from England and confiscated the majority of their property in 1290. Jews were not officially readmitted to England until 1655.


	4. Raise The Echoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catalina grapples with the fact that there doesn't seem to be any atrocity in the early colonial era that doesn't have bloody Trastamara hands all over it--and that the Church to which she devoted her whole last life wasn't just an accomplice, but an eager co-conspirator.
> 
> Kitty, meanwhile, gets laid. And then goes to shul--where she finds herself uncannily and powerfully drawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, it's NOT dead!

By the time Catalina had made it through the first chapter of Andrea Smith’s _Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide_ , she felt simultaneously relieved that Kitty hadn’t insisted on pursuing that material, and deeply horrified by her own encounter with it.

It was also fairly clear she’d failed to avoid confronting her parents’ legacy, after all. She’d hoped that by focusing on the specific angle of sexual violence, she might at least steer her initial investigations some distance from a direct connection to her family, but she had soon learned that where Europeans were doing something terrible outside of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were fairly good odds that the house of Trastamara was not too far from the purse strings.

When she thought too hard about that, she could hear echoes of screams in a voice that sounded far too much like her sister’s. She blocked these resolutely.

What she couldn’t block so well was the sickening realization that if she’d learned about this in her first life, she would have accepted it. She might have felt a little queasy, she might have done a bit of soul searching, she might even have tried to spare a few lives around the edges—but she wouldn’t have questioned the fundamental justification of any of it. She wouldn’t have questioned the basic _right_ of the monarchs to decree what they decreed, or of the European kingdoms to voyage, conquer, plunder, and kill.

And all of that sat very ill indeed with the basic realities of the body in which she’d so improbably come back to life.

_The person I used to be wouldn’t have seen anything wrong with enslaving the person I am now._

Across both her lives, Catalina was a person for whom her moral integrity mattered a great deal. She was also a person who believed deeply in the inextricable interdependence of faith and works, and now, the idea that she would have thought the works she was reading about to have been congruent with her faith and moral integrity was sending her into serious distress.

And that, in turn, presented another dilemma. For so long, whenever she was in moral distress, her overwhelming inclination was to turn to the Church for guidance and correction. Yet the evidence before her was overwhelming and incontrovertible: the Church had not just allowed these horrors, but had actively encouraged and participated in them. The institution that was supposed to be her moral lodestar had utterly forfeited any claim to moral authority over these matters.

So what was she to do? She still was deeply Catholic, she knew that. She still was flailing internally, and she couldn’t believe that there was nothing within Church teaching that could set her to rights. Yet she also had grown more and more deeply distrustful of much of the Church’s hierarchy as it stood, and it wasn’t just over this—her grappling with her own queerness had already shaken some things loose.

She suddenly, desperately needed to know whether anyone within the Church had tried to bring it to account over its atrocities, to wrest it from its will to power and bring its works in line with its creed. After some thought, she opened a new browser tab and typed “anticolonial Catholicism” into the search bar.

And this was how she came to learn about the movement called liberation theology—and now, she realized, she had yet another new reading list. She hoped that this one might actually point her towards some properly constructive acts of penance.

___

Kitty stirred early that Saturday morning and snuggled up to spoon Anna’s still-sleeping form. She had received a response from the rabbi she’d queried inviting her to visit today’s Shabbat morning services, and while the tone had been generous and inviting as anyone could ask for, she still felt anxious about the venture, as she often did with unfamiliar situations.

She pressed against Anna’s back, grounding herself in time with her girlfriend’s deep, rhythmic breathing and imagining that she could draw some of Anna’s strength and calm into her own skin. What she got, however, when her pelvis made contact with Anna’s muscular ass— _damn, it really is spectacular_ —was a different sensation entirely.

_Well, maybe not that different. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over the way she can just make my body feel_ good. _Not irresistible or tempting, not dirty, not even unique or special necessarily. Just good. And admirable. And strong._

_Reincarnation is the unlikeliest thing to happen to me, no question. But for a while after coming back, the idea that sex would make me feel strong and happy sure didn’t seem that much less preposterous. Anna proved otherwise._

_God, Henry was a fool._

At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to run her hands— _and other parts of me, too—_ all over her girlfriend’s body. Unfortunately, said girlfriend still seemed very much asleep, and it would hardly be fair to wake her up. She was about to (reluctantly) grab her vibrator and go take care of matters in the shower when Anna squirmed, stretched, and opened her eyes.

“Mmmm. Morgen, Kätzchen.”

“Good morning to you too, Anna Bella.” Kitty squeezed her and ruffled her hair.

Anna laughed softly. “Kätzchen, I get the distinct sense that you want something.”

“Well, yes. But you just woke up. I can go take care of it, don’t worry.”

Anna rolled over to face Kitty and pulled her close. “You didn’t ask what I woke up _from,_ ” she purred, sliding a knee between Kitty’s thighs.

Kitty ground down eagerly. _Well. What luck!_ And that was the last coherent thought she had for twenty minutes.

___

Kitty left the house in a durable good humor that was only slightly perturbed when Anne teased her for whistling cheerily over breakfast. _“Nudge, nudge, know what I mean, say no more?” I have no idea what possessed Cathy to introduce her to Monty Python’s Flying Circus. We’ll never have any peace again._

She shook her head, smiling to herself, and breathed in the brisk early December air, reveling in the slightly sharp shock of it to the inside of her nose. Even years on from reincarnation, she still never could quite get over the utter thrill of being free, adult, and alive, especially in these winter months. The previous month had been filled with terrifying anniversaries—of her arrest, her interrogation, her imprisonment—but now it was December, the anniversaries had come and gone, and here she was, unfettered, at liberty, and on her way to learn something new all on her own.

_Take that, motherfucker!_ On this morning, the thought that she and the others were alive, and _he_ wasn’t, was nearly enough to make her start skipping. Despite her slight anxiety, her mood was still very cheery indeed when she reached the synagogue.

She gave her name and explained the reason for her visit to a friendly-looking elderly woman in the front lobby, who gave her a marker and a blank nametag, pointed her toward what were presumably the doors to the sanctuary, and told her to request a program and a prayerbook from one of the ushers there.

She hesitated briefly before writing “Kate Howard” on the nametag, but in truth she wasn’t terribly concerned about being recognized. (Offstage, she preferred an aesthetic that communicated maturity and understated elegance, wearing her hair in soft twists and dressing in earth tones, drapey fabrics, and soft leather boots with low heels. It was far enough removed from her skin-tight, violently pink stage costume that most people didn’t think to make the connection.) She took a prayerbook, something that seemed like a Bible but was arranged rather differently and had as much Hebrew on the front as English, and a sheaf of papers from the usher, who pointed her to an open seat.

Soon, the service began, with two women wearing prayer shawls leading the congregation in what she assumed was a prayer, set to a bright and glittering tune. After several moments of awkwardness and fumbling (the books, for example, seemed to read back-to-front) she screwed up her courage and asked the woman next to her to help orient her, explaining in an apologetic whisper that she was visiting for the first time and hadn’t a clue what she was doing. Fortunately, the woman was patient and welcoming, prompting her to stand, sit, and bow when called for and to cover her eyes during a prayer called the “Shema,” occasionally pointing out the correct page in the prayerbook, and, when the richly dressed scrolls called “sifrei Torah” were carried around, showing her the correct way to gently touch the scrolls with the corner of her prayerbook and kiss it.

Once the scrolls had been returned to the front of the room, a short, somewhat hawk-faced woman with wavy chestnut hair cut just below her chin (Kitty thought she had heard the Rabbi, whose name she knew from their email exchange to be Marta, call her Hester Cardoz, but the ambient noise had garbled things somewhat) came to the lectern at the front of the room. She paused briefly, and Kitty felt an odd little shiver when she looked at her, but before she could think too much about it the woman began to speak in a deep, emphatic voice.

> “Shabbat Shalom, all. We are, of course, here on the second day of Hannukah, and while I am, as I expect many of you are as well, heartily sick of having this relatively minor rabbinic festival treated as ‘the Jewish Christmas’—when it’s acknowledged at all—I nevertheless think it worth reflecting on for a few moments today.
> 
> I’m sure most of us know the basic story—that the Selucid king Antiochus persecuted the Jews and suppressed their observances; that a ragtag band of rebels called the Maccabees fought back and against all odds defeated the mighty Selucid army, and that when at last they came to rededicate the Temple that the Selucids had defiled, there was only enough oil to light the holy lamps for one day—but a miracle occurred, and one day’s worth of oil lasted for eight. We might read it as a story of a people fighting back against an oppressing empire, and amazingly, improbably, succeeding.
> 
> If we dig a bit deeper, and if we fancy ourselves contrarians, we might also add that in spite of all this, the Maccabees weren’t terribly worth celebrating. We might say—not incorrectly!— that they were intolerant, violent absolutists who treated Hellenized Jews with appalling brutality. We might wonder, as we’re observing these eight days, why we’re holding them up for any kind of veneration. We might note the irony that the festival tied to them has become, perhaps, the _most_ assimilated holiday. If we have—as I admit I do—a bit of a twisted sense of humor, we might even take some wry glee in that fact.
> 
> Both of those perspectives have a great deal of truth to them. But the lesson I want to take from this is that legacies are complicated. Social movements and political moments are complicated. The meanings of these things are always evolving, always situated in the changing stories we tell about them.
> 
> So we can take a quarreling and lumpy set of lessons from these stories. We can learn that people who are convinced that they have the most noble, the rightest mission in the world can do unforgivable harm in the name of that mission. We can learn that having been oppressed doesn’t indemnify us against also becoming oppressors. We can learn that however improbable it seems, empires can be defeated. We can learn that scarcity is not inevitable—but also, that abundance must not be taken for granted. And we can learn, as ever, that in all these cases, so much about how things turn out depend upon the choices we collectively make.
> 
> At the end of our service today, as we do every Shabbat, we will say a prayer that begins with the word _aleinu_ —‘it is upon us.’ And perhaps the specific lesson of this very significant ‘minor’ festival that calls on us to eat fried food, play with fire, and put a burning symbol of our complicated belonging proudly in our windows for all to see, is that part of what is upon us is to deal with that complication head-on—to tell the stories filled with the good, the bad, and the ugly, to confront it all, to sit with the discomfort, and not, in the end, to let that discomfort excuse us from making the bad just a little better.”

As the woman sat down, and the rabbi and others resumed the service—setting the scroll on a large table, calling a series of people up to recite blessings from it (with what Kitty assumed were Hebrew names) and to read from the scrolls themselves—Kitty’s mind was reeling. She’d meant to come here to learn more about her shared project with Catalina—and somehow this woman had spoken directly to a part of what she and Catalina were trying to do. They were learning to tell the stories filled with good, bad, and ugly, after all, and training themselves not to shy away from the discomfort or become paralyzed from it.

Even beyond the project, though, there was something about being here that fascinated her and tugged at something deep inside her in a way she didn’t fully understand.

She knew, then, that whatever else came of her and Catalina’s project, she’d be back here. Why, or in what capacity, she didn’t know, but she did know she would be.

As they came near the end of the service, the rabbi prepared to lead the congregation in a song that seemed specific to the festival—Hannukah—the hawk-faced woman had spoken of. Her seatmate showed her the sheet of paper with the appropriate words.

_Maoz Tzur,_ she read at the top of it.

She didn’t understand the first verses of the song, sung as they were in Hebrew to a stately and stirring tune. Then, though, they switched to English:

> _Rock of Ages, let our song praise Thy saving power_
> 
> _Thou amidst the raging foes wast a sheltering tower_
> 
> _Furious, they assailed us, but Thine arm availed us_
> 
> _And Thy word broke their sword when our own strength failed us._
> 
> _Children of the martyred ones, whether free or fettered_
> 
> _Raise the echoes of the song, where ye may be scattered_
> 
> _Yours the message cheering, that the time is nearing_
> 
> _That shall see all people free, tyrants disappearing._

The idea of tyrants disappearing appealed to her immensely, of course, as did that of words breaking the swords of oppressors. But it was the line “raise the echoes of the song” that sent the same vague shiver through her as before—and not just because “raised echoes” was an eerily resonant description of what had happened to her and the other queens.

It was, she realized, was what it felt like when she’d looked at the hawk-faced woman—a raised echo, a moment of recognition. An uncanny sense that she and this woman shared something.

And that, she decided, was another reason she’d be back here soon enough, because she badly, powerfully needed to know just what that shared…something…was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maoz Tzur is a medieval piyyut, or liturgical poem that's come to be strongly associated with Hannukah. Usually we sing it after lighting Hannukah candles, but there's no reason not to also sing it during services.
> 
> You can hear what is overwhelmingly the most common tune for it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdw_DqZI7PQ
> 
> The English verses aren't direct translations of the Hebrew. They're allusive lyrics that reflect the general themes of the Hebrew, composed by Marcus Jastrow and Gustav Gottheil. I've tweaked them slightly to render them gender-neutral.
> 
> You can find the Hebrew and a direct translation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27oz_Tzur#Text


	5. To Be Measured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Catalina seeks out more to read on liberation theology, she meets someone who seems to know a bit too much about her.

It was with trepidation that Catalina returned to the library she and Kitty had visited earlier, but to her great relief a different librarian was sitting behind the reference desk when she walked in. Still, she approached the desk cautiously.

“How can I help you?” This woman’s tone was friendly, though Catalina felt unsettled by the way she seemed to stare right through her. The sense she got wasn’t hostile, but it was searching and focused, and slightly amused.

“I’m looking for works of Catholic liberation theology. I’m something of a neophyte, so I’ll need to start at the beginning.”

“Hmm.” The woman tilted her head slightly, and between her mannerisms, her thick, shining black hair, and her dark eyes and long, straight nose, Catalina was put in mind of a raven. “So you’ll want to begin with Guttierez’s _A Theology of Liberation,_ then. And then perhaps—” She pursed her lips. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s the source of your interest? What are you looking to get from this? It might help me tailor my recommendations—as it happens, this is something I’ve studied a bit, so you’re in luck.”

_How to respond?_ She considered her words carefully. “Well, I’m a lifelong Catholic”— _twice over!_ —"and I’ve been trying to confront the Church’s involvement in centuries of atrocities, and my own complicity in that. And yet I can’t disavow what I believe, so I suppose I’m in search of a strong enough…internal corrective.”

Was it her imagination, or did the woman seem to look right through her again? It was almost as though she was taking some sort of inventory, weighing her answer carefully as if it would decide something.

“All right. Then along with Guttierez I think you will want some of Ivone Gebara’s work, as well as perhaps Diana Hayes and…hmm, M. Shawn Copeland? That seems like a good start.” She stood up, and as she did so Catalina got a better look at her face and noticed a webbing of raised tissue and faded patches on parts of her neck and forehead.

They looked almost like…burn scars? She thought of Mary and shivered.

“Let me show you where to find those books,” the woman was saying.

“Oh! Thank you—although I’m sure that’s not necessary! You shouldn’t feel you have to put yourself out for me; I could just search them out by call number—”

The woman laughed. “Of course, but as you may have noticed”—she gestured around them—“it’s something of a slow day here. I’d like to!”

“Well then, thank you very much—” she paused. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

The woman smiled slightly. “You can call me Rosemary.”

“Well, thank you, Rosemary. Lead on?”

Once they’d collected the books and returned to the desk, Rosemary turned to her. “I’ll be curious as to how you respond to these.”

“As am I,” Catalina admitted. “There’s so much I’ve been trying to adjust to, so quickly. There’s…” She paused. “A great deal has changed in my life recently, and I have a great deal of recalibrating to do. And honestly, a great deal of atonement.”

There was that _measuring_ look again. A weighty pause.

Then: “I know.”

Catalina found she couldn’t move.

“I…what?”

“Queen Catalina, daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand, I know who you are and where you come from, and I know intimately what you and yours have to atone for.” She gestured briefly at the scars on her face, then reached into the pocket of her sweater and handed her a card with phone number and an email address on it. “ _Do_ let me know what you thought of the books, and come back for more when you’re done.” Her eyes continued to bore holes directly into Catalina’s mind. “You’re not as unique in your situation as you might think, and I hope you’ll do some good with the chance you’ve been given. I’ve now got some good reason to think you actually might.”

She turned on her heel and returned to the reference desk, leaving Catalina standing there dumbfounded.

____

When she recounted her encounter to Kitty that night after the show, she had another surprise.

“When I went to synagogue,” Kitty told her, “there was a woman who gave the homily—although they don’t call it that; I forget what they do—who gave me a feeling that I can only describe as _uncanny._ Like when I looked at her, there was some sort of shared echo between us; as if we had _something_ important in common. I didn’t properly _meet_ her or speak to her, mind, but I left feeling at once shaken and as though I just _had_ to go back.”

Catalina considered this. “Something in common—and Rosemary said we weren’t as unique in our situation as we thought…”

They sat in uncomfortable silence for several moments, silence which Kitty finally broke.

“You don’t suppose…” she paused anxiously, as though what she meant to say next were somehow too silly to speak out loud. “…you don’t suppose that they might have _also_ …come back? Like we did?”

“Honestly? I think it’s very, very possible. It does make sense, if you think about it, that there _would_ be others. Haven’t you wondered before how it is that we’ve somehow managed to find doctors and therapists who take what we are in stride?”

“I mean, yes. I just hadn’t wanted to question it too much. Oddly for me.”

“No, now that you mention it, me neither. It is all _a lot._ ” She sighed. “But I think this means we need to think about discussing all this with the others sooner rather than later. I hadn’t anticipated that our project would pull all these other strings, but now that it has, I believe they need to know.”

Kitty let out a long breath. “You’re right. And I promised I’d broach it with Anne, didn’t I? I’m still nervous about how she’ll take it. It’s not that I think she’d be opposed in theory, but if it hits her the wrong way and she feels as though she’s being reprimanded, she’ll explode and then turn inward on herself viciously. And that’s _before_ you bring in the implications about Elizabeth…”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We need to plan how to do this—ideally when we’re less shaken and exhausted.”

“You’re right,” Kitty agreed. But the air was thick with tension, and they parted uneasily.

___

After Kitty left her room, Catalina sat at her desk for several moments. Then she got up, walked down the hall and, after a moment’s hesitation knocked on Jane’s door.

“Yes, Cata?”

“Jane, I—” Catalina paused. She so wanted to tell Jane, but she knew it would be best to discuss matters with everyone at once. Wouldn’t it?

Besides, the realization that there might be others like the six of them had left her feeling shaken, and slightly unreal, as though her new life, her new _body_ , was fragile and ephemeral and might slip away at any moment.

If she couldn’t talk, then, she at least needed to touch and be touched.

So instead she settled for, “Can I sleep with you tonight? I…need you.”

Jane looked at her anxiously, but she took her into her arms with all the tenderness she could muster, and so for a while Catalina was able to give herself over to her dearest friend, who, though she didn’t know she was doing it, proved to her that in those moments the _solidity_ of her body was concretely, undeniably _real_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gustavo Guttierez's "A Theology of Liberation" (1972) is generally considered the pivotal text of the liberation theology movement; it prioritizes, among other things the "preferential option for the poor" over and against those who exploit them. It's a movement that's strongly associated with, though not exclusive to, Latin America. The Brazilian ecofeminist theologian Ivone Gebara is another pivotal figure in liberation theology; M. Shawn Copeland and Diana L. Hayes are Womanist Catholic theologians.


	6. Truth and Consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anne finds out about the project. An explosion ensues.

As it happened, the confrontation with Anne occurred far sooner than either Catalina or Kitty had planned, because one day Anne walked into Kitty’s room to chat and caught sight of the stack of books on her desk.

“ _Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion from Spain?_ _Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History, 1700-1950? Judaisms: A Twenty-First Century Introduction? Born To Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650?_ _Jew?”_ Anne looked up from the desk, quizzically. “Kitten, this is _quite_ the heavy reading list! What’s the story here?”

“I…was curious?” It wasn’t technically a lie, but, perhaps naively, Kitty hadn’t really prepared herself to respond to a direct question from Anne.

_But it was pretty silly not to expect her to gravitate to a new stack of books,_ wasn’t _it, now, Kitty?_

Predictably, Anne cocked a suspicious eyebrow at her. “This doesn’t look to me like idle curiosity. This looks like a _project._ ”

She cringed. She wasn’t going to be able to lie to Anne.

“Well, Catalina and I had both been thinking about how to confront some of the worse parts of our legacies, and how to make some small amends," she offered, diffidently (even as it occurred to her seconds too late that she could simply have said “I’m not quite ready to discuss it, yet.”)

Anne’s lips had tightened, and her arms were crossed over her chest. “Which ‘worse parts,’ pray tell?” She looked suddenly terrifying—and also just slightly _terrified._

“Where to start? The beginnings of colonialism? Religious persecutions? Expulsions? We were there and held power at the start of it all, and the consequences of are inextricable from the injustices that happen today. Don’t we have to start talking about it? To start taking some responsibility?”

“Oh? _We_ have to take responsibility? Not the _Kings_ and _princes_ and _counselors_ and _admirals?_ ” There was a dangerous edge to Anne’s voice.

Kitty sucked her breath in. “Yes. _We_ do. Because _we’re_ here.”

Anne’s eyes flashed dark, and Kitty braced for the explosion.

___

Kitty had been prepared to confront Anne, her beloved, chaotic, charismatic cousin. She had been prepared to confront Anne, the clandestinely vulnerable queen whose heartache over her daughter was greater than she would ever admit. She had even been prepared to confront Anne the Volatile, known to history for her quick and incandescent temper.

And yet, despite knowing full well the acuity of her cousin’s mind, she still was somehow unprepared to confront Anne the debater, whose classical education was second to none, whose determination and rhetorical acumen, when set on a target, were unstoppable.

Politics, contrary to the cheeky (and, they all knew, completely sarcastic) line in her song, were _very_ much Anne’s thing. In that moment Kitty saw the woman who had driven the creation of the Church of England, and she felt every bit the empty-headed teenager so many had painted her to be.

Nevertheless, she held fast.

Anne stood tall, shoulders squared, and she fixed her cousin with a gaze that could have cut steel. “Do you _truly_ mean to tell me, Katherine Howard,” she said in a low, even voice, “that of _all_ the people who held power then—of all the _men_ who directed armies, who suppressed rebellions, funded conquests, and sent countless subjects, _including their wives,_ to the scaffold— _we_ are obliged to shoulder the blame for all that?”

“Nan, that isn’t what I—"

“I would be very careful as to how I answered this if I were you, Katherine. I ask again—are you _truly_ proposing that we take the responsibility for what men have done?”

“Yes.” Kitty tried to hide the tremor in her voice. “It wasn’t just men. There were regnant queens.” _As you know quite well,_ she thought, remembering with a shiver what she and Catalina had learned in the process of their research about Elizabeth’s persecutions of Catholics and the beginnings of the colonization of Ireland—not to mention the infamous Marian persecutions— but Anne’s icy glare warned her that she had better leave Elizabeth out of this for the time being. “We consorts had enormous power too, even if it wasn’t as obvious.”  
  


She took a deep breath and looked down at her hands. “We’re here. We came back. We have, against all probability, a chance to atone. To tell the truth, certainly. Maybe even to do something concrete. Who are we, if we waste it?” She remembered a prayer she had heard during her visit to the synagogue, and thought of the translation she read in her prayerbook, after the woman beside her took pity and guided her to the correct page.

_Aleinu,_ she thought; it is upon us. She breathed in and out slowly.

“It’s on us, Anne. Who else can take the kind of responsibility we can?”

“On us? You of _all_ of us should know better! Or have you forgotten everything we told you about how what happened wasn’t your fault?”

“That’s not the same thing!” Kitty could feel her fragile composure starting to splinter. “You know that! Why throw my trauma back at me? Just to be cruel?”

  
  
“Cruel? You’re being cruel to yourself and the rest of us as well! We’re victims too, and you’re putting the responsibility for _all_ of modern Western history on us?” Anne’s terrifying cool, too, was rapidly disintegrating. “What kind of twisted logic is that?!”

“Victims can victimize others, Anne!” Kitty was shouting by now.

“Kitty’s correct,” came a calm voice from behind them. “I should know.”

Both cousins turned to see Cathy standing in the doorway.

“Dammit, Cathy,” Anne cried, “are you in on this too? I’d have hoped you’d at least have the decency to support me!”

“I’m sorry, Anne,” Cathy replied. “I wasn’t in on it, actually, but I figured it out, especially given how tense and distant Catty’s been.” She turned to Kitty. “I’ll admit I’m hurt you and Catalina didn’t include me from the beginning. I've been coming to some similar conclusions on my own, and I could have helped with your research. Surely you can't imagine I could read all I do in feminist and Womanist Biblical studies and _not_ start thinking along those lines? Let alone live in the body and the mind I've come back in? Looking like I do, _moving_ like I do, thinking and reacting like I do? You think I haven't experienced grief for that, and _thought_ about where that might have come from?" Kitty could hear some bitterness in her voice, and from the way Anne had started fidgeting beside her, she thought _she'd_ heard that too.

  
But Cathy had saved the deepest cut for last. "What's more,” she grimaced, “I’m afraid I have some fairly recent experience with atonement.”

“Must you remind me of that?” Anne exploded. “We had an agreement!”

“It wasn’t for your benefit that I said that. It was for Kitty’s.”

“Fine! I can see I’m outnumbered! But you are both _utterly WRONG!_ I don’t know how I can possibly make it clearer—I have _told_ you already why putting the responsibility for these men’s actions on their victims is abhorrent!” Her voice had gone from a bellow to a growl over the course of this, and at the end it was clear to both Kitty and Cathy that she was choking back tears. “And don’t you _dare_ think I’ve missed the implications of what you’re saying about Elizabeth!” At these words the tears she'd been holding back started flowing freely.

The three women stared at each other briefly, and then Anne snarled, turned on her heel, and stormed out, shoving Anna—who, along with Catalina and Jane had been standing outside Kitty’s room and had clearly heard most of the confrontation—out of her way.

Cathy shut her eyes and put her hands on her ears for a moment, breathing deeply and muttering to herself. Then she turned to Kitty. “I need to be with Anne now, but you and I should talk soon. All right? And you _too,_ Catty,” she added, before heading after her girlfriend.

Kitty sat down abruptly on her bed, feeling as though the wind had been knocked out of her. Anna came in and sat down beside her, taking her hand in her own, and Catalina and Jane followed.

She squeezed Anna’s hand for dear life, and then looked ruefully up at Catalina. “So much for our carefully planned revelation, hmm? I suppose—” she raised her eyebrow wryly—“the cat’s rather out of the bag now, isn’t it?”


	7. Echoes Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of her confrontation with Anne, Kitty returns to synagogue, where she learns considerably more about the hawk-faced woman she saw earlier--and from her, a GREAT deal more about why she and the other queens have come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAM episode incoming!

In the days following their confrontation, Anne avoided the rest of the queens. On the rare occasions Kitty encountered her outside of the show, Anne either avoided her eyes or shot her a frosty glare.

Kitty was heartsick, but she knew it would have been wrong not to confront Anne sooner or later. And she was bitterly proud of having stood her ground against the withering combination of Anne’s intellect and rage.

It was in this frame of mind when, on the Saturday morning after the incident, Kitty found herself retracing her steps to the synagogue she had visited. She’d already wanted to return, and with the turmoil at home, she had a sense she might find comfort there, as well as answers.

She sat by herself off to the side of the sanctuary, wanting this time to passively take the service in. She still didn’t know the service at all, but she stood when everyone else stood, and sat when they sat, letting herself be carried away on the rhythms and the melodies.

As they began chanting from the Torah scroll, she saw the hawk-faced woman who had spoken when she’d last visited come toward the front of the room and the platform where the scrolls were laid out. She wore her wavy chestnut hair in a bob, and she had an aquiline nose, somewhat sallow skin, deep-set eyes and a slight double chin. She could hardly be called beautiful, but Kitty nevertheless found her striking.

One of the people standing around the platform chanted out some words in Hebrew.

“ _Ta’amod Ester Shulamit bat Rivkah Yoḥanna ha-Levi!”_

The woman came forward, so Kitty supposed that at least part of what had been chanted was some kind of ritual name. She listened as the woman chanted a call and response and then chanted from the scroll, using a slim silver pointer to mark her place in it. She had a powerful contralto voice, and as she sang Kitty felt the same uncanny echo she had when she’d spoken before.

_I’ve got to meet her._

____

After the service finished, everyone seemed to mingle in the hall outside the sanctuary. Kitty saw the woman standing off to the side and, screwing up her courage, walked toward her. The woman looked up, and, fortunately for Kitty, spoke first.

“Oh, hello! I saw you looked new; I’d meant to try and help orient you!”

“That’s very kind of you!” Kitty extended a hand, which the woman took. “I’m Kate Howard, and, as you say, I’m new here.”

“A pleasure! I’m Ester Cardoso, and I am rather _less_ new here. I teach history at King’s.”  
  


“Lovely to meet you,” Kitty replied. “What sort of history?”

“Well, it’s rather niche, but I focus on gender and sexuality in early modern England. Or to put it more plainly, I’m interested in Tudor and Stuart-era women and their sex lives. Sounds salacious, but there it is. And do you know,” she went on, “you happen to share a name with one of my favorite figures from that era…” She stopped abruptly as she saw the color drain from Kitty’s face. “Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry. Rambling on without paying attention like that is my besetting sin, I’m afraid.”

It was true that Kitty and Catalina had both suspected the existence of other reincarnates, who _knew_ about them, by this point; Kitty even suspected that this woman might be one of them. And of course they claimed their identities onstage, but they tried to distance that from their everyday lives. Synagogue was one place Kitty had been especially invested in this—she’d even gone so far as to give her name as “Kate” to throw others off—and the thought of being found out here, before she was ready, shook her.

In her consternation, Kitty involuntarily fumbled with her scarf, moving it out of place just long enough for Ester to catch a clear glimpse of the thick scar encircling her neck.

Time froze. For a moment, Kitty couldn’t breathe. In the next instant she would have bolted, had Ester not quickly regained composure and said, “Perhaps we could continue our conversation somewhere quieter? I’m dreadfully sorry to have frightened you, but I promise, I’m a friend—or I’d like to be, anyway, if you’ll trust me?”

___

Ester led Kitty down a side hallway into a smaller room. “Please. Do sit. I have to apologise once again for frightening you. Of course I’ve seen your show, and I adored it. It’s just that it can sometimes take me awhile to put two and two together.”

“Er, thank you.” Kitty was still badly off-balance.

“Anyway, the first thing I need to tell you, Ms. Howard, is that your circumstance, while highly unusual, is not exactly unique.”

“And how, exactly, would you know that?” She thought she knew, but she still had to ask.

In answer, Ester pulled the collar of her shirt aside to reveal a faded patchwork of pits and shiny, raised blobs of scar. Kitty had never seen these on anyone in twenty-first century London, but she recognized them with a shudder as the telltale signature of smallpox.

_I suspected this,_ she told herself, but the confirmation was still a shock, and she stared openly, unable to respond. Ester continued smoothly.

“I was born in Toledo, in what was then the Kingdom of Castile, in 1475. My father was a minor physician. In 1492 my family, along with the rest of the Jews of Castile, were offered the choice of conversion or expulsion from the kingdom. We eventually settled in Thessaloniki, in what’s now Greece, and attempted to rebuild our lives. I married a fellow exile, the son of my father’s apprentice, and had two children with him. In 1502, there was a smallpox outbreak. First my younger daughter died. Then I followed her. That should have been the end of the story, except that in 2006 I woke up. My body looked quite different, except for the scars. I have some facial scarring as well, but foundation hides it acceptably. I assume it would be worse if I hadn’t died so quickly.”

“My God, I’m sorry! I…” Kitty broke off, flustered. “Forgive me, I’m still getting my head around the fact that this has happened before.”

“Over the years, I’ve discovered something of an informal network. Many of us, as you might expect, have gravitated toward studying history in some way, although interestingly, few of us focus on the context we lived in the first time. I suppose we worry that we’ll slip and say something there’s no way we should be able to know, and can’t cite from conventional sources. There’s a fellow who studies late medieval Akan material culture at the University of Ghana, for example, who was born in Haiti in 1775. He died—a hero’s death, I should add, scaling the wall at Fort Churchill—in the Haitian revolution in 1798.”

“What determines who gets to come back, and how? This seems so arbitrary.”

“I haven’t been able to figure out much in the way of patterns. We all have different bodies, but some of us look more like we used to than others, and I haven’t been able to work out a clear pattern as to who comes back looking more different. Most of the people I’ve met are ordinary people like myself, and like my friend Oscar I mentioned, but you’re not the first major figure I’ve run across. Mai Bhago organizes farmworkers across the southwestern US, and Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz teaches liberation theology in New York City—both under pseudonyms. Mary Aggie is a public defender in St. Louis, although her name is unremarkable enough there that she just uses it and it doesn’t raise any eyebrows.

“There are three tentative trends, however. First, everyone I’ve met died at _least_ two hundred years ago. Second, everyone was deeply wronged in some way—might have been personally, might have been as part of a despised class—in their first life and has a score left to settle. In a few years, for example, I won’t be surprised at all if Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey show up—it’s nearly two hundred years for them. Third, all of us seem to have been put, upon our reincarnation, in a position where we’re able to make _something_ better. Maybe that’s through telling suppressed stories, as I and my fellow historians try to do. Maybe it’s through more direct means, like Mai Bhago or Mary Aggie. We all work incredibly hard, mind you, but we’ve all found our paths to get into the position to do that curiously unobstructed.”

Kitty thought back to the speed with which the Queens had managed to sell their show on the West End. At the time she had no way in which to contextualize this, but having since learned about the ridiculous odds against making a living in the theatre, she had to wonder how things had come together for them so easily.

“I think it is safe to say,” Ester was continuing. “that the six of you neatly fit those categories, although you are the first I know of who have openly claimed their original identities.”

“I suppose so.”

“So. What brings you to _shul,_ Queen Katherine?”

Kitty laughed. “Well, the fact that you know what you do makes this easier to explain, I suppose. Actually, what you said just now clarifies a few things for _me._ Anyway. You lived through the consequences of some of this in your last life, so I surely don’t need to tell you that the early modern European aristocracy did, shall we say, some less than ethical things.”

Ester nodded. “That would be putting it mildly. Genocide, conquest, expulsion, slavery, rape.” She smirked, and said in an undertone, almost to herself, “‘And what do you call this act?’”

Kitty was suddenly grateful for the cursory attention she’d given to Anna’s interest in stand-up comedy. “Aha. The Aristocrats! Of course!”

“Except it’s actual aristocrats this time,” Ester chortled.

“Indeed. The originals! Well, at any rate, it occurred independently to me and Catalina—Catherine of Aragon—that we ought to say something about this. Catalina had been thinking about the soul-searching she’d been expected to do about her daughter, but not about her parents—and I certainly don’t need to remind you what they did!—and that Anne _hadn’t_ been expected to do about Elizabeth. Meanwhile, I’d started thinking about sexual abuse and power, and the ways in which what happened to me was done systematically to entire peoples.

“Both of us agreed we needed to do something, but we had no idea where to begin. We decided to each research the thing that hit closest to home for the other one—Catalina wasn’t quite ready to come to terms with her mother’s legacy in the same way she’d just had to with Mary. I started learning about the Inquisition and the expulsions, and I found I also wanted to start learning something about Judaism. I read some books, and I attended a service. Except I found myself drawn back here, for some reason. And, well,” she shrugged. “Here I am.”

“Well then.” Ester regarded her thoughtfully. “Let’s plan to be in touch—although I get the distinct sense I’ll be seeing more of you here, regardless.”

Kitty thought of how being in the service had felt _right_ , in some inexplicable way, and knew that what Ester said was true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot find specific records of a smallpox outbreak in Thessaloniki in 1502. However, since smallpox (or at the very least, an orthopox with similar enough characteristics) was endemic throughout the Mediterranean, it does not seem implausible. In any case, I needed a cause of death that would leave visible scarring and still have allowed Ester to live through the expulsion. 
> 
> For similar reasons, for the scene to work as it does, the queen who meets Ester must be one of the beheaded cousins; since Anne had enough in the way of active religious commitment to have been a major figure in the English reformation, that leaves Katherine as the more plausibly “religiously curious” of the two.
> 
> Ester’s family’s diasporic path from Toledo to Thessalonki, incidentally, roughly follows that of one branch of my own family.
> 
> Mary Aggie was an enslaved woman who tried to sue for her freedom in Virginia in the mid 18th century. She was denied. Later she was tried for stealing and attempted to claim benefit of clergy. She eventually succeeded and was pardoned, but banished from Virginia; her case set a precedent that led to other BIPOC being able to claim said benefit, albeit under rather restrictive terms.


End file.
